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Bagheera Fountain
Artist:
Lillian Saarinen
Location:
Boston Public Garden, at Charles St.
Location
Boston Public Garden, at Charles St.
United States
42° 21' 14.2524" N, 71° 4' 8.112" W
See map: Google Maps
Neighborhood:
Back Bay
Type:
Sculptural fountain
Year:
1986
Medium:
Bronze and Granite
Collection:
City of Boston
Funders:
Unknown
Description:
Originally entitled Night, this piece’s current title is inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. One of the story’s characters, the panther Bagheera, is born into captivity but escapes. He later helps to save the life of the main character Mowgli, a human child living in the jungle. Boston-area artist Lillian Swann Saarinen shows Bagheera lunging at an eagle. In a 1980 interview, Saarinen recalled that her interest in animals went back to her early childhood, when she used to stay up late at night sketching the mice that crept around her family’s brownstone. The artist was married to architect Eero Saarinen and worked with him on The Gateway to the West, the famous arch in St. Louis, Missouri.
